In the service of arms, they must not rise beyond privates or at the most corporals. It is much better to make a sergeant or officer from a Spanish farmer, even though he cannot read and write, than from the more capable native. On the contrary, the more dexterous and deserving is the latter, so much greater will be the mistake committed. Here the one who plays for gain loses. It is less dangerous and more tolerable to bestow the rank of officer on a very stupid, vicious, and cowardly fellow.
It is necessary to provide that a Spanish cura be placed in each village, and it is preferable to leave a village without a minister rather than to place it in charge of a Filipino secular priest. Between Filipinas and España there is no other bond of union than the Christian religion. This bond is very powerful, and may induce the islanders to love and to defend the Spanish domination as a duty. In no place better than in España is it known of what the religious influence on the masses is capable, even in violation of their most direct interests. To imagine that the natives will become fond of our government because they judge it good or the best possible, I believe a vain project. Their ignorance regarding the condition of other peoples does not permit of their entering into such comparisons; and those who might be capable of doing it, will discuss political matters; and however excellent such men consider our domination, they would always think that it would be more advantageous for them to withdraw from the yoke and seize the scepter in their own hands, and pass by this method from their humble condition of vassals and subjugated to that of masters and mandarins. Therefore, just as the community is sustained by virtue and the monarchy by fidelity, this colony, in my opinion, must be maintained by religion. Starting from this beginning, nothing can become so direct an agent for promoting emancipation, as the ordaining of priests among the natives.[13] Some persons observe that they are unfit and vicious, and consequently, do not infuse respect, exercise influence or cause fear. More, if a Filipino secular priest lives in a state of intoxication, and even commits, as has indeed happened, atrocious crimes which lead him to the scaffold, he does not for this cease to be a priest; and thus he degrades the class to which he belongs, and undermines the prestige of sanctity surrounding the character of a religious man. And this idea, namely, that because they are Filipinos, they cannot have any influence, has been destroyed by merely the recent insurrection in Tayabas, where a lay-brother, a young fellow, without any personal or antecedent quality that could make him respected, was able, by means of a religious matter—without the printed copies of the admonition of the archbishop of Manila, or the Spanish friars of the neighboring territory, being able to prevent it—to cause a settlement to mutiny and to arm a crowd of three or four thousand men, even to the point of firing upon their own pastors, who only saved themselves by means of flight; to kill the governor of the province; and attack the national troops. And so that my opinion in regard to this matter is, and has been, that of many others who studied the country, I shall copy a few extracts illustrative of the matter.[14]
[Mas’s first extract is from a communication to the king from Governor Aguilar, dated November 25, 1804. In this letter, Aguilar characterizes the native secular priests as lazy and dissolute. He cites a recent example of a village, evidently previously in charge of the native seculars, where a Recollect priest has been placed in charge, and where in consequence the church has been completed and order preserved. Although there are some good native priests, they do not infuse the respect that the regulars do, for the latter are never intimate with their parishioners, while the native priests, on the other hand, live on an intimate footing with them, and enter into every detail of their lives. Consequently, the regulars can manage the natives better than the native secular priests. Again the religious have no ties, and hence their only care is their church and their duty. The native seculars are burdened with relatives, who even live in the curacies with them, and hence, they neglect their churches which soon fall into ruin. It would be bad indeed for the islands if the bishops were to transfer the curacies to the native seculars. That might be done when there are Spanish secular priests who possess the right qualities, but to transfer them to the natives would be committing a great wrong. If all the villages in charge of native secular priests had friar curas, they would be in a much better condition. In Negros, which is in charge of the native seculars, nothing is done, a ruinous condition prevails, and the villages are greatly depopulated. If the matter were left to him, he would not allow a single native secular priest to have charge of a village. They might profitably be used as assistants to the regulars.]
[The second letter is one from the Manila Ayuntamiento, dated July 12, 1804. This letter is highly laudatory of the friars, who spare no pains to fulfil their duties. The native secular priests however, are only in few instances found efficient, and are in general only fit to act as assistants to the friar curas. The Filipinos with their weak intellects, seem unfitted for the office of priest, by reason of their lack of constancy. They have not the education requisite for the office of priest, for the conciliar seminaries are little more than a name in which a few native secular priests, themselves without sufficient education, attempt to teach. The regulars subjected to the royal patronage would be much better than any native seculars. After Mindoro was transferred from the Recollects to the native seculars, the missions quickly declined, churches were ruined, Moro raids increased, and the tribute of the villages fell off. In consequence, the government now wishes to replace the native clergy by the Recollects. The regulars also further the temporal affairs, and have done notable things in agriculture. The Ayuntamiento hopes that the complaints against the regulars will be disregarded, “for although there are some defects which they may have, they are always useful to religion and the state.”]
[The third citation is from San Agustin’s famous letter on the character of the natives.[15]]
Taking the Christian religion as the foundation upon which our domination is sustained, it is evident that everything that contributes to destroy the religious spirit, destroys and undermines this foundation. Under this idea nothing can have more direct harm than the degradation and corruption of the minister of divine worship, and experience has demonstrated this truth. For just as the first sectarians of Jesus Christ extended his religion rapidly by means of the enthusiasm which took possession of their minds, and by means of the martyrdoms which they suffered, so also, in all places where the priests have given themselves to effeminacy, to feasting, to ambition, and to vices, the belief of the peoples has diminished from that moment, and they have ended by falling into religious indifference. The government ought, then, to consider the clergy as a power; and just as great care is taken not to introduce insubordination and demoralization into an army, so also the government ought to watch over the conduct of the curas. Let them have all the influence possible over the village, but let them always be Spanish Europeans, and allow them to feel no other interest than España. This is the vital question. If the matter be considered under this point of view, one cannot exaggerate the harm that a goodly portion of the friars are doing, and the moral force that our government is losing because of the manner in which they are living. The most general weakness is that of concubinage. Many keep a mistress (who is there called a stewardess [despensera]), inside or outside the convent. The convent in Filipinas has no cloister, as it is a parochial house. And this fault, if one considers the climate of the country, the circumstances, and the ideas of the natives, is, to say truth, the most excusable and the least harmful.
The most pernicious and transcendental fault into which many curas have fallen especially for some time back—a fault ten times more harmful than the one to which we have referred—is that of avarice, fed by the practice of trading. It is well known that the mode of trading in that country usually consists in usury, that is, in advancing money in order later to receive products in kind at a very low price. And even leaving aside this aspect of the matter, it happens, as is natural, that the minister, as soon as he has become a speculator, contrives to get some profit from his position, and from the influence which his ministry and the policy indispensable in that country give him, and thinks little or nothing of the means so long as they conduce to the increase of his capital. Sometimes this vice is united with the first, and the stewardess or her husband—who is generally one of the servants of the convent, whom the friar has married to her, in order to save appearances—is charged with the gathering, magazines, shops, sales, etc. But it must be confessed that the government has had a great part in this corruption, by protecting the religious against their superiors. Two left during the term of General Lardizabal, taking a large amount with them. When the Augustinian provincial, Father Grijalvo, went with his secretary, Father Fausto Lopez, to see him [i.e., Lardizabal] about one of them (Father Jarava)[16] who wished to go away with his money, and said provincial asserted to him that this was a very bad example, as there were many who would devote their energies to making money, and then leave, although religious are so necessary in these islands, the said general answered him: “Do not believe it. You are not so necessary. You are deceived in this. The English government in India has no friars, and yet that country is sustained and prospers.” Nevertheless, in Singapor, he [i.e., Father Jarava] boasted in conversation with the good Bishop Courvery (as the latter mentioned to me) of the gold which he carried; and told him of the presents which he had had to bestow in Manila in order to obtain his passport, especially to the assessor of the government. The most illustrious bishop wrote that to that capital, and on learning it, the guileless general Lardizabal was angry enough to tear his hair, as was mentioned by the secretary of the government, Cambronero.[17] In 1840 they went to inform the alcalde-mayor of a province that all those who went away with indigo, unless provided with a pass by the cura, were detained in the bantayan (a kind of sentry-box) of a village in his jurisdiction. The alcalde ordered the matter to be investigated, and found it to be so; and some passes were brought to him, which stated little more or less than “permit So-and-so to pass with so many quintals of indigo.” The reason for this was that the cura had advanced money to them, and feared that if they carried away the indigo and sold it, it would afterward be impossible to collect the money. The alcalde ordered a verbal process to be formulated, in which two friars and two secular priests made their depositions in the most effective terms against the cura in question. [The alcalde-mayor wrote to the vicar of the province, who answered him under date of Batac, July 25, 1840, to the effect that the freedom given by the government to the friars, who had been relieved of obedience to their prelates, accounted for this. The government and the ideas of the present time were to blame, consequently, not the friar prelates. The friar of whom the alcalde-mayor and the vicar wrote boasted that when he was attacked on the one side he took refuge in the jurisdiction of the other. Although he boasted that he intended to take his 40,000 pesos and enjoy life with a female companion, yet he obtained governmental permission to remain in his curacy.] The curas generally suffer from another defect, namely, that of meddling in temporal matters, or rather, of endeavoring to abrogate all jurisdictions, and then assume these in themselves. It is evident that there must be a limit to everything, and that those friars who display an insolent spirit and are usurpers of command must restrain themselves within limits. But this evil is one of the least, if our chief and vital object be considered to be the conservation of the state. Is it or not a fact that, for España to maintain this colony under its dominion, it needs the influence of the religious over the inhabitants? If it is a fact, one must consider these persons as instruments; their influence must be positive; the alcaldes and other employes must be wheels of the machine, who must be in communication with them, and to a certain point move at their impulse. So long as the villages obey the voice of the friars, the islands will be Spanish, for the friars can do no less than be so. Emancipation would inevitably cause their ruin. This will appear hard and unendurable to many who are not friends of theoretic intervention, especially among the present military and civil officers of Filipinas; but I understand it in this way, and do not see by what other agency a handful of Spaniards can, at six thousand leguas’ distance, and without Spanish troops, keep obedient a vast and wealthy country, which has need of us for nothing, in which there are not a few elements of independence, and which is coveted by many foreign nations.
And if all this is a fact, we can do no less than lament the unjustifiable imprudence of having printed in the ordinances of good government now in force, which were printed and distributed throughout the whole country, the following:
[Here follow ordinances 17, 18, 24, 30, 31, 85, 87, 89, 91 and 92 (some only in part), for a synopsis of which see VOL. I., pp. 234, 235, 236, 238, 239, and 256–261. Mas continues:]
In no part did the animosity with which these ordinances were written appear so much as in these last two articles, for they treat of the construction of convents, churches, and royal houses; and since none of these edifices can be erected without the instructions of a special measure and by authorization, it follows that the government is dictating provisions to itself, and consequently, it was quite useless to insert them in a public law; and although it was intended that they should contain the expression of the royal will, the latter would always have been sufficient provided that action were taken in the proper bureau. Moreover, what ordinance 91 says about the possibility of the sumptuous convents being used as a shelter by the enemy, as was experienced in the war with the English, seems to me to be lacking in common sense. For if they are susceptible of being used as fortresses, they will be an advantage to those possessing them, who may, if they wish, burn them when they have to abandon them. In the same category are all the strongholds. For example, in the war with the English above mentioned, the latter captured Manila, and immediately made use of the forts to protect themselves from Anda’s troops. Consequently, according to the argument, the fortifications of Manila ought to be demolished. If the enemy defend themselves in the convents, it will be because they have to flee from us, and then we can desire nothing better than that they shut themselves up, so that we may surround them and take them prisoners. If the Spaniards are in such a condition that they look upon the convent as a refuge, they can, since they are in their own country, get aid at any moment. A large and beautiful church, in the midst of a village of bamboo or board houses, contributes not a little to inspire a lofty idea of what is within it. All the sumptuous edifices of the ancients were temples.